Estate agents’ fees are 80% higher than Stamp Duty for the majority of home movers, new research has found.
Reallymoving.com, a company which provides online quotes for home movers, has based its figures on the Office for National Statistics house prices, not the Land Registry’s which are £70,000 lower, and on a 1.8% average estate agent fee.
It says that the average Briton spends £28,952 on moving house in a lifetime, or £75,972 in London.
A single home move now costs an average of £8,264 – or £20,739 in London.
The company says that the greatest single cost for the typical home mover in the UK, based on an average national property value of £228,000, is the estate agent’s fee.
The site puts these fees at £4,104, with Stamp Duty Land Tax costing £2,280.
It says a further £805 is spent on conveyancing, £355 for a survey and £60 for an Energy Performance Certificate.
In London, it says a typical transaction will cost the seller £6,984 in estate agents’ fees, and will cost the buyer £11,640 in Stamp Duty.
But in all other areas other than the South-East, Stamp Duty is less than the agent fees.
For instance, in the North-West, the site puts Stamp Duty for the purchaser at £1,570, with estate agents’ fees for the seller at £2,826.
Removals themselves do not seem to vary hugely, and average £660 per move. For example, they are £630 in London, £585 in the Midlands, £675 in the South-East, and at their most expensive are £805 in the South-West.
Rosemary Rogers, director of reallymoving.com, said: “Contrary to popular belief, Stamp Duty is only the most expensive moving cost in London and the South-East.
“For the rest of the UK, estate agent fees are 80% higher than Stamp Duty.”
The site did its research using data from 77,065 quotes. It has put together a moving cost calculator here.
https://www.reallymoving.com/moving-cost-calculator
Comments
First off I very much doubt you are! But you are sio very typical of someone who knows more than an Agent, can save a couple of grand and will bore the ears off everyone telling them so.
Here is one from this week, A Vendor has an offer from someone who is mortgage arranged and able to proceed at £195,000 a little below his £200,000 ideal figure but £5000 above its OMV, A second viewer goes round and has a look and says to Mr Vendor "nice house, pity it is under offer we would like to buy it"
Without thinking things through Mr Venor bypasses the Agent and tells the buyer that the deal is off unless he gets another £5k! Naturally the deal is off .
Going back to the new buyer it turns out they were being polite, making concersation and have a house to sell.
Every Agent on here can tell at least a dozen tales of vendor greed or vendor stupidity, but they don't. Every vendor on here will crow how much smater they are than Agents and will gob off when they do a better deal, but never have I heard one admit they were wrong, they tend not to say too much after they have been repossesed or eventually sold at a lower figure than was on the table and it is always a bit sad when they miss out on the home they had set out to buy because they were to smart to listen.
Jonnie, do you believe everything the buillder tells you?
Been to see a local builder recently, he did a private deal with some savvy bloke on his mums house, her son told her not to get robbed by estate agents and leave it to him, bless her the old girl did and her son negotiated a nice deal with the builder on her cottage and saved his mum over six grand. Clever boy.
Sadly for the old dear and the sons inheritance by not getting an agent to deal with it the two building plots worth a hundred and fifty grand a pop were missed by everyone except he builder who couldn't believe his luck
Builder was laughing his balls off, the son saved 6k and cost himself about 300k. Genius.
As the saying goes ''if you think the professionals are expensive, just wait until you see what the amateurs cost you''
Jonnie
The matrix I use to value a property determines the open market valuation, the Asking price matrix is higher again, by recording Valuation, Achieved Price and knowing the vendor's expectation on value I can repeat that I will on average achieve between 5 and 10% higher than FSBO.
Land Registry data allows me to check on Private deals done (I check on all instructions not sold just in case I have a commission claim against the previous owner) With all those figures it is easy to show how I compare with the typical amatuer who might only ever buy and sell 2 or 3 homes in their lifetime a figure I manage to sell every week or so.
I agree that you cannot achieve the highest price without exposue to the maximum market, you must agree that it not always make economical sense to obtain maximum exposure as the cost to do so will be higher than the increase in price achieved.
Although i agree with much of what he/she said the poster was incorrect to claim they will achieve a 10% net higher price than a FSBO as It is impossible for him/her prove this.
It’s true, You can't substantiate a claim like that. However, if you accept that a property cannot achieve the highest price possible without exposing it to the largest part of the market then I think you may answer your own question.
You stated impressive figures but they have no substance. How can you prove you achived a higher sales price (just once ) than a vendor would have done directly.
...... too many to count or remember case studies stretching back 26 years is normally enough to prove the point!
I like the cut of your jib sir apart from. "As soon as it is pointed out to most vendors that I will earn them and extra 5-10% (net of my fee)" How do you substantiate such claims?
No non what so ever as long as;
the Private sellers were using valuations that they own and were not using figures supplied free of charge by some hapless agent who was not smart enough to charge for a valuation or make provision to charge for the valuation.
the private vendors paid a proportionate rate for their advertising given most agents will have been advertising supporting and developing the said sites for years providing the stock that draws the traffic to them.
It is only weak or inexperienced Agents that need fear competition, wherever it comes from. At first glance along comes a great idea from Really moving showing up the extortionate costs of Estate Agents Fees, but anyone reading and understanding what they have come up with will soon realise that the people behind it have no understanding of the buying and selling process.
Faced with a vendor who asks me to value their home my terms and conditions allow me to invoice for my time and professional advice if the property is marketed within 6 months. Sure I get a few cancelled appointments but I would far rather frighten FSBO's off before I have given them the benefit of my knowledge and experience. I even offer my own online agency service whereby I will advertise properties for vendors but will not prepare details, take phone calls, arrange appointments or deal with offers on their behalf.
As soon as it is pointed out to most vendors that I will earn them and extra 5-10% (net of my fee) very few can not see the benefit of using my traditional Agency service.
Competition is a great way how showing up how good my service is.
So would the poster below would have no issues if Rightmove or Zoopla allowed private sellers to list if the EAA and PMA made it possible?
Lets think, Prudential..... fail, Black Horse..... Fail, Halifax.... fail, Woolwich.... fail
All and I mean all of the super smart people over the past generation of Estate Agency have turned up with a shed load of cash, given it to the partners of good local firms and simply failed once the Agent Heads are Yachting in the med.
The real worrying bit right now is that the latest batch are providing figures to lenders and the lenders are so unaware that they believe them.
If you honestly think that a company that has a Managing Director thick enough to allow this press release to see the light of day is on to something and are so new to the industry that you do not know that the mortgage lenders, insurance companies and supermarkets have all tried and failed at Agency in the past then I would rather be a doomed agent than I would be you.
Please describe what is going to be achieved by allowing less abled , less qualified competition into the Agency market. I know what will happen, as soon as the duty of care an Agent has for their client is replaced with a volume led drive for profit and sales of services. Clients will be clamering once again for someone who cares about them and has a vested interest in achieving maximum price for their customer. That mate is why Tescos, Google, Rightmove Agency et all while able to compete on price will never actually achieve a client/agent relationship.
RIGHTMOVE are at it again - just received letter advising me my monthly cost is going up by £90 month from next month that is a 14% INCREASE to £730 pcm - Had enough, told them to stick their increase and their website up their a*se!
@ Private Fraser you obviously haven't done your homework mate, some very big players are waiting on the sidelines for the new way of selling property once the bill goes through, every little counts (get my drift), not to mention oh.... i better not say anymore, do you think these big players haven't thought it through? the mortgage market is their main target customer alongside cheap marketing models, not saying they are better than a traditional agent, but change is a coming!.
Sorry to disappoint you mate but just like prostitutes there will always be a need for Estate Agents.
The thing about the general public sell their home is greed. Estate Agents very often do nothing more than temper that greed with common sense and tact.
With an MD as stupid as the one who put together this press release Really moving are simply a black hole to pour money into. EAT is a rocky coastline of new firms all destined to put an end to the traditional Estate Agent, £300 on a web developer 25 quid on a url and off you go the next greatest thing to hit the internet. Dig you way back through them all and find one that is successful.
Your post is quite clearly eminating from the Reallymoving camp so my advice is don't say anything more till you work out that you need to divide the quoted figures by the average number of people in owner occupied homes before quoting how much the average citizen is spending, otherwise some smart arse might just report you to advertising standards.
Not heard much from you lately!
A precursor report no doubt to the forthcoming Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill whereby the property market will be opened up to "other property selling models", it's envitable the private seller may become the norm in time.
Clever stuff depending on your viewpoint from Reallymoving, way ahead of the game, it's those that think ahead that succeed, smart people can see what the future holds, and it's not bricks and mortor agent's!.
Pity they don't include their payments for the referral fees they get from the site which adds extra cost to the consumer.
Stop Press:
Stamp Duty most expensive part of buying - what is the cheapest element?
Good Estate Agents offer free service to buyers - taking them on viewings, measuring up for curtains, helping surveyors and mortgage process, helping with conveyancing delays, getting deal through and saving abortive fees. But hey - that's a boring story.
Removals themselves do not seem to vary hugely.....
37% is a reasonably notable variation.
I wonder when www.reallymoving.com will offer a private portal - it sounds like a pre cursor to me.
Agents fees in London are throat-slittingly low. Its the high prices which are the biggest cost - the premium for living in London and the cost of living when there. Percentage fees are relative. Most vendors are also buyers and the SDLT can't be ignored as an unrelated cost - if you need to buy - it's related.
Few costs other than agents fees are performance related, and a good agent will often secure a price which mitigates their fee - if it were not so, Foxtons would not exist.
The London figures are based upon an average house price of £388k. Fair enough - that equates to an average commission of 1.8%. I very much doubt that is indeed the current average as this weekend I have received offers from well known agents ranging from 0.5% - 1%. plus VAT, so I assume VAT is included in the precise average provided.
Sensationalist stats devoid of context intended to grab a headline as unsubtle free advertising
Erm what about bloody mortgage costs - fees, redemption penalties etc? That'd represent a much more significant cost in buying/selling!
Another load of absolute 'tosh'. Not worthy of further comment.
Look out of your window.
If you see a dissused coal mine, then stamp duty is 1%
If you see a big red bus, it's 4%.
"Moving" and "buying" incorrectly treated as the same thing here.
Instant quotes it boasts, but not from agents fees> Strange, but is that because they dont make a fee from doing so? Its just a poor PR story.
Just noticed they are not an EA.
I will change my post to:
This is worthy of a cheap online agent.
So their 'average' EA fee is almost double the average in Scotland (as determined by the OFT a few years ago), and a fifth higher than the OFT's figure for E&W ......
Stupid person after the MD job at Arbon House?
Stamp duty is a Tax payable by a purchaser (not the vendor) Estate Agency fees are performance related commission that is has to be competitive but is not guaranteed and is paid by the vendor for a service.
The two are costs are not related and can not be compared.
Then lets look at the maths if (current fact) 720,000 homes are sold each year how can each of the 60,000,000 population spend an average of £8000, 3 times in their lifetime?
60,000,000 x 3 = 180,000,000 home moves
180,000,000 divide by 70 years (average lifetime)= 2.6 million transactions per year?
Sorry Love you are punching the calcluator like a Chimpanzee! and instead hitting the keyboard in the hope of coming up with the works of Shakespear have managed to type Guff!
Dear reallymoving.com
Comparing a cost to seller to the tax for a buyer is possibly the dumbest way of highlighting that you are cheap online agent since Realising Reality said we should buy all our unsold stock.
If you have a PR company, sack them. If you don’t, get one.
Here's a question... Ignoring VAT...
If stamp duty is 1% and the estate agents fee is 1%...
Which is your highest cost?
Please don't say they're the same. You'll look like an idiot.
All very carefully worked out on 'average' house prices. £28K + on moving in a lifetime and where do they get the figures from? Plucked out of the air based on today’s numbers I should think.
Now we all know that statistics can prove anything but what is clearly not stated here is that taxes of one sort or another and legal fees are compulsory but us estate agents are employed voluntarily by vendors. They can offer their home for sale in many ways but they come to seek our advice because we are good at our work.
Anyway who is complaining? Nobody! Who is writing this drivel? Some outfit trying to boost business. They should get a life.
Stamp Duty 4%
Estate Agents Fee 1.5%
How much time did you spend on this?
Chuck in all the VAT and the stamp then you see that the biggest cost of moving is taxes of one sort or another